It is well-known fact through Biblical evidences
and church tradition that the proclamation of the Word and the Lord's Supper
were two poles of the Christian worship weekly observed. This tradition of Christian
worship had been continued without major change until the fourth century since
the early church "devoted ... to the apostles' teaching and fellowship,
to the breaking of bread and the prayers"(Acts 2:42) from the Day
of Pentecost in A.D. 30. The apostolic tradition of the Christian
worship was continued at the time of A.D. 200 according to the witnesses of
Hippolytus of Rome, Tertullian of North Africa, and the Canon of the Orthodox
Church.
It was at the time of Constantine the Great who permitted
religious freedom to the Christians to begin that the Roman Catholic Church
added various cultural elements to the Christian worship. Since then, the worship
began to go astray away from the original pattern and became outrageous at the
time of Reformation. Latin Mass was kept regardless of native languages and
regions of worshippers. The worship was performed like a drama, so
that it became a seeing worship. The characteristics of hearing worship such
as Word-proclaiming and Scripture-reading was disappeared in the worship. From
the fifth century, Christians stopped taking bread and wine during worship service
because of individual pious lives, indifference of believers, rigid penitent
habits, and strong emphasis on the divinity of the Christ although they participated
in the Mass every week or every day.
Meanwhile, Reformers, who tried to reform wrong traditional
practices of the Roman Catholic Church, changed Mass-centered worship into sermon-centered
one as they cut or shortened the liturgy. In this process, Zwingli, who gave
great emphasis on piety, took no account of outward forms and liturgical elements.
He did not accept Lord's Supper as a channel of grace. He did not think it necessary
to the Christian worship, either. Thus Zwingli observed Lord's Supper four times
a year in contradiction to the teaching of Martin Luther and John Calvin who
wanted weekly observance of the Lord's Supper. It can be said that the Korean
Protestant Church, which has thought piety as important in the worship, and
which has disregarded liturgical elements, and which observed Lord's Supper
two or three times a year, has been practicing Zwingli's pattern of worship
without consciousness.
Churches in history did not keep balance between proclamation
of the Word and the Lord's Supper. And they made mistake of being inclined to
one side. The Roman Catholic Church had omitted proclamation of the Word, sermon
freely proclaimed by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Protestant Church,
which inclined to the proclamation of the Word and the free working of the Holy
Spirit, brought about individualism and opportunism. And she disregarded dynamics
of early Christian worship taught by apostles, experienced, and incarnated in
the lives through the message of the Lord's Supper. This distorted worship service
has been continuously practiced all over the place in the world until now.
In spite of this distorted situation, efforts to restore
the worship have been made in church history. For example, a movement, 'Back
to the Early Church' broke out in the United States in 1804. This is called
the Restoration Movement. Reformers like Thomas Campbell, Alexander Campbell,
and Barton W. Stone who advocated this movement had already understood that
the original pattern of Christian worship was to practice both proclamation
of the Word and weekly observance of Lord's Supper. They sought out Christian
unity through the movement. And the Christian Church or the Church of Christ
was born out of this movement.
There was another movement which began to spread far and
wide to the Christendom in 1960s. The Roman Catholic Church has begun Worship
Renewal Movement since the Second Vatican Council held from 1962 to 1965. From
this time, the Roman Catholic Church revised their Mass-centered pattern of
worship, began to preach the Word in the worship service, led the Mass with
mother tongues, read the Bible and the Mass book translated into native languages,
and allowed the Christian to take the elements of the Lord's Supper.
In the Protestant Church, some New Testament theologians
such as H. Lietzmann, O. Cullmann, and J. J. von Allmen published their works
of studies on the early church. Thanks to these men, churches all over the world
began to give their attention to the balanced worship service with both proclamation
of the Word and the Lord's Supper. In Korea, some practical theologians such
as Keunwon Park, Yongsub Chung, Changbok Chung, and Eunkyu Park lead Korean
Worship Renewal Movement. And the result of this movement helped important Lima
Document and Lima Liturgy to be born by the Committee of Faith and Order of
the World Church Council held in Lima, Peru in 1982. The importance of
this movement is the unity of the churches and missions, and the product of
this unity movement is Lima Document and Lima Liturgy.
Thanks to this movement, many churches began to accept
the importance of balance between sermon and Lord's Supper. They began to give
attention to the restoration of the worship. Christ's work of salvation was
proclaimed through the sermon. And Christ's work of salvation was incarnated
through the Lord' Supper. In fact, Christian worship is to reenact the great
liturgical lives of Jesus: the work of Galilee; the work of Jerusalem. The work
of Galilee is presented in the worship of the Word, and the work of Jerusalem
is presented in the worship of communion. As Martin K hler said that the Gospels
were the passion narratives which had a long introduction, the work of Jesus
reaches at peak in Jerusalem. However, the work of Jesus in Jerusalem has meaning
when the work of Jesus in Galilee precedes. And the work of Galilee is brought
to perfection by the work of Jerusalem. This shows how the meaning of incarnation
was presented in the lives of Jesus and how the Christian worship should be.
Because of this reason, the Roman Catholic Church restored the worship of Word,
and the Protestant Church tries to restore the worship of communion.
The Korean Protestant Church does not frequently observe
the Lord's Supper due to some reasons. There are persons who believe that the
worship of the Protestant Church must be free from formality. And she must be
open progressive spontaneous in expectation of the moving of the Holy Spirit.
They have a fear that the worship of the Protestant Church should become formality.
There are still other persons who view with suspicious eyes churches which
observe the Lord's Supper frequently. They think that frequent observance of
the Lord's Supper reduces its spiritual meaning. And they try to find some reasons
of frequent observance of the early church in its life situation such as persistent
persecution, strong work of the Holy Spirit, and rapid growth and spiritual
revival.
Most of churches do not have prayers available to the
church calendar, or avoidable of repetitious usage of the same liturgy because
of their worship tradition observed the Lord's Supper two or three times a year.
There are not many liturgies available in the churches, either. In addition
to this, the present liturgies are too long and traditional to use frequently
for fear that those should take great deal of time and make worship delayed.
That is why many churches do not have communion worship. The Protestant Church
have used some shortened liturgies since Reformation. So the Protestant
Church can not use the liturgy-centered Mass book of the Roman Catholic Church,
or the Prayer book of the Anglican Church without amendment. This is the present
situation of the Protestant Church.
Meanwhile, churches, which weekly observe the Lord's Supper
with a song- singing, a Scripture-reading, a short message, a prayer, are
apt to become mannerism, to block a flow of worship, and to disregard accumulated
worship tradition of two thousand years. It is not right to say as much the
restoration of traditional worship is the only way of worship renewal as the
worship has to be always renewed without reference to tradition. For we can
find out who we are, where we came from, and where we go through
the worship tradition. And we can obtain necessary information from it
for worship renewal.
Today's worship has problem in both formality and spirituality.
If it inclines to formality, it lacks of spirituality. If it inclines to spirituality,
then it lacks of formality. Therefore, our urgent task is to study and develop
liturgies of the Lord's Supper including both formality and spirituality. And
a development of brief communion messages with theological meaning and teaching
of the Lord's Supper and communion prayers according to church calendar are
to meet the needs of the times. And a study of the Lord's Supper according to
church tradition is positively necessary in order to make this project possible.
Based upon these understandings, this book aims at promotion
of understanding of the Lord's Supper according to church tradition, collection
and analysis of eucharistic prayers and meditation resources, and presentation
of much more resources for the development of communion liturgies, so that the
individual church may choose and use them in the worship service according to
her situation and circumstances. And this book also aims at simultaneous
presentation of both theoretical and practical materials and the possibility
of weekly observance of the Lord's Supper, activation of balanced worship
with the proclamation of the Word and the Lord's Supper, and pursuit of the
change of consciousness and action of the Christian to the way of lives manifested
in the doctrine of cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ through activation
of the Lord's Supper.
This book was divided into two parts: (1)'Understanding
of the Lord's Supper According to Church Tradition'; (2)'An Analysis of Eucharistic
Prayers and Meditation Resources According to Church Tradition'. In the first
part, to emphasize necessity of the restoration of the communion worship(chapter
6), biblical origin(chapter 2), church tradition of liturgies and prayers(chapter
3), theological meaning(chapter 4), frequency(chapter 5), and solidarity through
eating and drinking(chapter 7) were examined.
In the second part, an analysis of necessary materials
for the Lord's Supper was mainly concerned on a basis of strong awareness of
necessity of the restoration of the communion worship and of strong demand of
materials for it. The results of these works were 'Materials for Communion Prayers'(chapter
8), 'Materials for Communion Meditations'(chapter 9), and 'Samples of Liturgies'(chapter
10). In the 'Samples of Liturgies,' an explanation of liturgies was given, and
four short samples of liturgies and traditional liturgies of the Roman Catholic,
Greek Orthodox, Anglican, and Lima Liturgy were introduced.
The first chapter, 'Introduction', was written on problems,
purpose of this dissertation and project, methods of study, and constitution
of this paper. And the content of each chapter was briefly summarized.
The second chapter, 'Biblical Origin of the Lord's Supper',
aimed at seeking what the apostolic tradition of the Lord's Supper was. To do
this, six questions were asked, and the answers were pursued. Questions are
as follows: (1)Does the report on the Last Supper of Jesus have the historical
authenticity? (2)Is the early pattern of communion liturgy found in the Bible?
(3)What are the circumstantial evidences of early communion liturgy? (4)What
are the theological meanings of early pattern of communion liturgy? (5)Is the
early pattern of communion messages found in the Bible? (6)Is the early pattern
of communion prayers found in the Bible?
Chapter three to five aimed at seeking materials necessary
for the contemporary Christian worship renewal in pursuit of distorted history
of how apostolic worship tradition was developed and changed. To accomplish
this purpose, a process of historical changes of communion liturgies and prayers
was examined.
The Christianity had well kept apostolic worship tradition
until the fourth century. The believers' prayer and sermon in the worship were
existed by the time of Gregory the Great. But the worship of medieval church
after Gregory the Great gradually became superstitious due to the doctrine of
transubstantiation. From this time, weekly communion worship participated by
believers was disappeared in the worship. And the worship became a seeing Mass
performed as a drama to block believers' real participation. The prominent characteristics
of this time were persistence of Latin Mass which participants did not understand,
believers' avoidance of reception of the elements of communion, worship to the
elements of communion, worship to the saints and Mary, and omission of believers'
prayer and sermon in the worship.
The Reformers, who tried to reform medieval distorted
worship tradition and to go back to the apostolic worship tradition, omitted
superstitious elements in the Mass, and introduced mother language worship and
mother language songs. However, they failed to restore double-structure of worship,
the proclamation of the Word and the Lord's Supper. They made worship from a
seeing worship to a hearing and word-centered one without communion.
But it became clear that this was not biblical worship
pattern. The reason for the medieval church to excessively become liturgical
was to keep orthodox theology from heresy and to help believers, who did not
know Latin, understand through the dramatic presentation of the Mass. But this
was not original pattern of the liturgy. It also became clear through the writings
of early fathers that the early church worship was not antiliturgical
pattern like Zwingli's thought. Christian worship was not excessive liturgy-centered
worship of sacrificial pattern. It was not excessively shortened worship, either.
The early pattern of today's communion prayer was found
in Hippolytus' Prayer. The first part of Hippolytus' Prayer consists of 'Sursum
Corda' and 'Preface'. Its second part consists of 'Narrative of Institution',
'Statement of Offering', 'Epiclesis', and 'Doxology'. Hippolytus' Prayer was
an original pattern of the prayers of the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek
Orthodox Church. This pattern is found in the Lima liturgy as well and even
in the liturgies of Reformers who tried to renew medieval superstitious worship.
Liturgical history tells us that communion prayers are
traditionally only a few, and that 'Preface' along with 'Offertory Prayer',
'Songs of Elements Taking', and 'Prayers of Thanksgiving' after communion
had been developed in various forms according to the church calendar. In this
context, the Protestant Church can make various forms of prayers according to
the church calendar and make use of them along with several communion prayers.
It is possible to have balanced development of the Protestant worship if the
Protestant Church may revise and shorten the present prayers to fit to the situation
and theology of Protestant Church as the Anglican Church did.
The fourth chapter, 'Theological Meaning of the Lord's
Supper and Church Tradition', aimed at research on the matter of explanation
of nature of communion worship and on the matter of way of real presence on the
bread and wine. Adverse reactions of medieval sacrifice worship and transubstantiation
were examined. The reason of early development of transubstantiation was because
of Gnosticism and the reason of sacrifice theology was because of sacrifice
culture of Jews and Gentiles. Gnostics viewed the Lord's Supper as useless because
they denied incarnation of Son of God. Jews and Gentiles who had sacrifice worship
were apt to view the Christian worship as atheistic because the Christianity
did not have temple and sacrifices.
The Reformers denied the doctrines of transubstantiation,
sacrifice worship, and concomitance, but they agreed upon divine institution
and continuity of the Lord's Supper, spiritual presence of the Christ, celebrating
and anamnestic characteristics of redemptive sacrifice of the Christ, the importance
of high leveled worship and spiritual fellowship with Christ, and special grace
given to participants. And Lima Document summarized the characteristics of the
Lord's Supper as follows: Eucharistia, Anamnesis, Epiklesis, Koinonia, and Anticipation.
The fifth chapter, 'Frequency of the Lord's Supper
and Church Tradition', aimed at research of how the apostolic worship
tradition changed and what kind of process of efforts had been made of restoration
in the progression of history.
The sixth chapter, 'Necessity of Restoration of the Lord's
Supper', can be understood as a conclusion of the first part of this paper,
'Understanding of the Lord's Supper According to Church Tradition'. The conclusion
is that worship without communion is imperfect and handicapped worship. This
conclusion is made after serious study about biblical origin and church traditions
of the Lord's Supper.
Worship becomes a living sacrifice as the word becomes
incarnated. Only the plentiful words of preacher can not experience incarnated
way of lives which is God's way of existence. Sermon is spiritual, but communion
is physical. Thus the relationship between sermon and the Lord's Supper is harmony
between spiritual thing and physical one, mystical harmony which the word
becomes flesh. The relationship between sermon and the Lord's Supper is the
relationship between God's promise proclaimed by the prophets and fulfillment
through the passion and resurrection of Jesus, that is, the relationship between
promise and fulfillment. If sermon is done by speech, the Lord's Supper is done
by action. If sermon appeals to reason of man through the sense of hearing,
the Lord's Supper appeals to the mind of man through the sense of sight, taste,
smell, and touch. If sermon prepares world for becoming the people of God, the
Lord's Supper prepares the church for serving the world.
Therefore, the worship without sermon or communion is
handicapped and imperfect worship. Catholic Mass without sermon is lame worship.
Protestant worship without communion is unaccomplished worship. Mass without
sermon is nothing but omission of sermon from the worship of word, but worship
without communion is handicapped worship omitted half of the worship. Medieval
worship tried to give message through dramatic presentation. So the problem
of the Mass is to add superstitious elements to worship. But the problem of
Protestant worship is to omit half of worship. Here we feel the necessity of
restoration of the Lord's Supper. And to make necessity clear, biblical aspect,
historical aspect, theological aspect, and practical aspect of the Korean Protestant
communion worship were examined.
The seventh chapter,'Importance of Lord's Supper Viewed
by Solidarity Through Eating and Drinking' aimed at introduction to solidarity
through eating and drinking of ancient Near East, Israel(Old Testament times),
Greco-Roman times, and Korea.
The eighth chapter, 'Materials for Communion Prayers',
aimed at making four sample patterns of liturgies on a basis of church tradition,
Reformers' tradition, and the items which writer was interested. Prayers, which
were necessary to those items, were collected, revised, and redacted or written
in person.
The ninth chapter, 'Materials for Meditation', were written
in person. These meditation materials are short messages for ministerial, contemporary,
and doctrinal precepts. These materials are to teach Christians with the spirit
of Christ's cross, to lead worship into spiritual, holy, and inspirational through
the existential meaning of lives, and to help them experience deep fellowship
with God the Trinity and remission of sins through the Lord's Supper. This chapter
was divided into two parts: (1)'52 Communion Meditations' along with Scriptural
references; (2)'Communion Meditations According to Special Seasons'.
The tenth chapter, 'Samples of Liturgies', aimed at development
of four short brief liturgies which took about ten minutes at Protestant word-centered
worship service. Very brief four pattern of liturgies were presented. And traditional
communion liturgies were introduced at the second part of this chapter.
In the eleventh chapter, 'Conclusion', some expected
effects, comments and others were briefly described.
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